Advent Reading Challenge Day Eleven

A Book with a Christmas Tree on the Cover

I found this a tough category to fulfil as I only really read Christmas fiction as ebooks for review purposes. Sometimes I know what the covers look like, but often I don’t. And, if I’m being honest, few of the books are memorable enough for me to care about their covers. You’ll meet some exceptions as the month progresses. So, I went through my shelves but drew a blank. But then I remembered that once upon a time the copy I had of Sally’s Family by Gwendoline Courtney had a Christmas scene on the cover. Sure enough, when I looked through my album of book-related photos, there it was:

I try very hard not to say that I like a book just because I do but Sally’s Family falls into that category.  It was Mum who started collecting Gwendoline Courtney’s books but I never felt the urge to read them, which is peculiar considering how much I’d enjoyed Elizabeth of the Garret Theatre as a child. Finally Mum gave me a copy of Sally’s Family and I could do nothing else but read it.  Now it’s my favourite of Gwendoline Courtney’s books. (Of course I’ve read them all!)

But Sally’s Family.  It’s about six orphaned siblings who, because of the war, have been living apart.  When Sally, the oldest, is discharged from the ATS she sets about getting the family back together again.  The book tells the story of the ups and downs of that venture as they get to know each other and try to live on very little money.  The premise is not original but it is very well handled. All six of the Hamiltons are distinctive characters with individual personalities; they develop and, in some cases, change quite dramatically.

Sally is impulsive and gathers the family together without giving much thought to how each of her much younger siblings will get on with one another – and her. She’s also inclined to worry and, after a tricky start, wonders if she should have taken on this last wish of their father. It is Guy and Lucy, the middle children, who offer her support – and they who, in the longer term, cause her most anxiety. The family is not left to fend entirely for itself though. Their landlord Charles, an army friend of their father, is also in the background and they gradually make friends in the village.

It’s another one of those books with community at its heart, first of all the family group and then the wider network of new friends. There’s romance too but it mostly happens off-stage. It’s a book I re-read fairly often, particularly when I need to be cheered up and it never fails because, although there are divisions and difficulties along the way, there is also a wonderful depiction of family.